Filipinos want past abuses remembered

BELINDA RHODES, SPECIAL TO THE EXAMINER

Published 4:00 am, Monday, February 21, 2000

MANILA - Fourteen years after the "people power" uprising that ended the harsh dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, organizations across the Philippines have been holding a "season of remembering" to ensure the crimes and human rights abuses of the past are not forgotten.

The organizers of the activities, which range from mini-rallies to so-called "truth-telling sessions" to putting up small monuments, hope they will become a regular biannual event that will stimulate the collective memory and help ensure that a dark period of the country's history is never repeated.

"I think to a large extent people know what happened, but there is no public acknowledgment and so things continue to be rewritten," said Teresita Quintos Deles, the executive director of the Gaston Z. Ortigas Peace Institute in Manila and one of those behind the season of remembering.

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One of her main complaints is that the Marcos family has begun to behave as if nothing ever happened: "We thought we'd ousted them. When we sent Marcos out we thought this was a clear judgment of the people. Now they're back together, with so many of their cronies," she said.

Two of Marcos' children, Imee and Ferdinand Jr., known as Bongbong, now hold elected office. Their mother, the flamboyant Imelda Marcos, who returned from exile in 1991, now lives in a stylish apartment in the capital, writes a newspaper column in which she talks about what needs to be done for the poor and is rumored to be on the verge of opening her own shoe museum to display the extensive collection of costly footwear for which she is most famous.

She has never been punished for

any of the crimes for which she was convicted. Although she was sentenced in 1993 to up to 24 years in jail for corruption, she is out on bail while her appeal is considered - a process that could take many more years.

Quintos Deles contends the country's apparent forgiveness of the Marcoses despite the laundry list of criminal allegations against them sets a dangerous example: "You can steal, you can do as much damage as you like to your people because you can come back, you can negotiate your way back in, everyone will forget. I think it's a cultural and moral burden," she said.

Monsignor Pedro Quitorio, a spokesman for the hugely influential Catholic Church, agreed: "We had human rights abuses up to our necks, and now we are trying to cover it up. It seems our memories are short-lived - nobody talks about it any more."

Estrada's flip-flop

The heartfelt fears and concerns of social activists, the church and the political left have come into sharp focus since President Joseph Estrada was elected almost two years ago. Shortly after taking office, he provoked outrage by suggesting the late dictator might be allowed to have a hero's burial in the capital.

He was forced to backtrack, but many Filipinos now fear that some of the most prevalent features of the Marcos era - cronyism and corruption - are reappearing within his administration. Last year, two major rallies were organized in the capital to protest.

Some of the most familiar faces from the people-power days - former President Corazon Aquino and Manila Cardinal Jaime Sin - led thousands of protesters in scenes reminiscent of 1986.

"We never want to repeat what happened during the time of Marcos," said Quitorio. "We are wounded. We still have the scars of martial law, and we don't want to suffer that much again."

Shortly after the rallies, a conference was held at one of Manila's most prestigious universities to examine ways of pursuing justice without the help of the Philippine court system.

The courts, so far, have failed to punish those responsible for corruption and human rights abuses, so the idea of some other kind of reckoning with the past is gaining credibility. Quintos Deles and a group of colleagues have been examining the idea of holding a South African-style "truth commission" to look into the Marcos era.

While Estrada has already brushed the idea aside, insisting the government is "always true to the people," several senior politicians have said they would be behind it.

Too much time passed?

The main concern of those who oppose such a commission is that too much time has passed to establish the facts of everything that happened between the declaration of martial law in 1972 and the revolution in 1986. Other critics fear the bleak notion of the Marcoses somehow using the opportunity to bend the truth once and for all and to orchestrate a return to power. Others still are simply holding out for real action by the courts - a prospect that seems less and less likely.

Few people deny that action should have been taken earlier. Amando Doronila, a respected political writer, says that the military should have been purged immediately after the revolution. But he admits that would have been im

possible: "Corazon Aquino didn't have the support of the entire military establishment. If she had pushed the question of human rights too hard, then she could have lost the support she needed to counter rebellions. It's easy for us to say she should have done better, but given the realities of the time, I don't think she could have done."

Quintos Deles blames the Marcos era for what she sees as a lack of serious politicians in the Philippines. "For the period of martial law you didn't have the natural development of political leaders. We don't have a successor generation in place. Martial law effectively decimated the level of our political leadership and that's why every election is a difficult period, looking for people who people can trust and believe in," she said. &lt;